Dial in Microphone Problems

[rachel_atlas5d]

Hi,

I have bad internet (via satellite), so zoom (and many other things) can be a bit flaky, with about a second delay (which is highly annoying for audio, but no fault of zoom). I heavily rely on my landline which is fairly reliable and people say they can hear me fine during regular phone calls. My company has dial in capabilities on their meetings and I have been dialing in for audio since I moved to this location with satellite internet. It used to work great, but for a while now, they haven't really been able to hear me. Sometimes I am breaking up, other times, they just can't hear anything and I have to reconnect to audio so that they can hear bits of what I'm saying. I'm not muted (according to zoom) and I'm using the exact same hardware setup that works perfectly for regular phone calls. I can always hear them perfectly fine with no breaking up at all, but they can't reliably hear me. This happens regardless of whether I am signed in for visuals on my computer in addition to audio on my landline or not. It has gotten so bad that in one on one meetings, we regularly stop using zoom for audio entirely and just use phone calls. Does anyone have any suggestions of what to try?

[Totti]

Hi Rachel, what are your internet speeds like? Once you have that info check against what Zoom recommends for audio VoiP: 60-80kbps. Latency is quite prevalent on Satellite connections and that plays a big factor. For your reference, a 300-400ms response time is high enough to start encountering issues during real-time communications.   https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362023-System-requirements-for-Windows-macOS-and-Linux#...

When in a meeting you can also check what the Zoom network stats are for your session.  https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/202920719-Accessing-meeting-and-phone-statistics

[rachel_atlas5d]

My internet speeds are really bad (especially upload) and failure to work over internet is really not surprising. What I don't get is why my physical landline (not voip) is a problem dialing into zoom meetings (even though that same landline is fine during regular phone calls). In fact, it is so bad that using my computer for audio (via satellite internet) is often better than the landline for zoom meetings (though it is pretty flaky, as I would expect with my internet). But, dialing in via a physical landline, shouldn't be affected by internet speeds. The entire point of that is to be able to call in without an internet or computer connection.

[Totti]

Thanks for the additional context Rachel. These type of quality issues are tough to troubleshoot without looking at logs. I recommend your organizations IT dept engage Zoom support and provide the relevant meeting details like Meeting ID, When the audio quality issue occurred and the Meeting Dial in Number you used.

When a CALLER picks up their phone and dials calls to a Zoom Dial In Number +X XXXXXXXXXX, that CALLED NUMBER goes to the Caller's Phone provider (Cell provider or Landline Carrier) that's called Originating Carrier. The ORIGINATING Carrier looks at the CALLED NUMBER in their routing table. They then need to route the call. The Originating Carrier selects their Least Cost Route and they hand-off the call to the next carrier in the PSTN cloud. The call routes through Underlying Carriers (ULC's) through the PSTN. Eventually the call reaches Zoom's "Terminating" carrier. The Terminating carrier hands the call to Zoom and we answer "Welcome to Zoom..." and ask for the Meeting ID#.

Since your issue is persistent and there are many hops along the way it would be best to engage Zoom Support and determine where the issue lies. 

Thanks.